Practical Photoshop October 2021

“Welcome to issue 127 of Practical Photoshop! If you enjoy the issue, why not subscribe and get a whole year for just $19.99?” Whether you’re just getting started with Photoshop or you’ve been using it for years, there are always new secrets and tricks to learn. This issue, we explore 15 little-known Photoshop hacks to help you take your image-editing to the next level. Elsewhere, get creative with color gels and fabulous scribbles. james.paterson@futurenet.com www.digitalcameraworld.com Editor James Paterson Art Editor Rosie Webber Production Editor Richard Hill Content Director Chris George Senior Art Editor Warren Brown DOWNLOAD THE PROJECT FILES To download this issue's files, type the following link into your web browser on your PC or Mac: http://bit.ly/ppho_127 FIND US HERE… http://bit.ly/practweet http://bit.ly/pracface Also available on: http://bit.ly/pp_pocketmags http://bit.ly/pp_app_store http://bit.ly/zinio_pp…

WATCH THE VIDEO https://bit.ly/3EyAj20 01 OPEN THE GRADIENT EDITOR Here’s a fun trick with the Gradient Tool that lets you create rays of light when your photo’s showing sunlight through an object. Grab the tool, then click the Angle Gradient style in the options at the top. Next, click the Gradient Preview (where it shows the colors) to open up the Gradient Editor box. 02 MAKE AN ANGLED GRADIENT In the Gradient Editor, set Gradient Type to Noise and increase Roughness to about 90%, then click Randomize until you get an even mix of bright and dark colors. Click OK, then drag out from a center point (ideally in an image where there’s a strong light source like the sun) to make a gradient. 03 BLEND IT IN Click Cmd/Ctrl +Shift+U to remove the color. Go to…

The Move Tool isn’t just useful for moving layers: it’s also brilliant at finding them for you. If you have lots of layers, it can be tricky to target the one you need. But grab the Move Tool and check Sample All Layers in the options at the top, and now you can simply click over parts of the image to select the corresponding layer. Of course, there are times when layers overlap one another, which makes this slightly more difficult. Thankfully, the Move Tool has another trick up its sleeve. Simply right-click over any point in the image for a list of all the layers that occupy that spot, then choose the layer you need from the list. And if there’s a layer you keep selecting by accident, remember…

If you like to use keyboard shortcuts to switch between tools, this tip will blow your mind! Most tool shortcuts are ‘spring-loaded’, which means you can press and hold to temporarily switch tools. Say, for example, you’re using the Brush Tool and need to switch to the Eraser Tool to remove a few strokes. Hold E down to summon the Eraser Tool and – while still holding E – paint to erase, then release the E key and you’ll switch straight back to the Brush Tool. Shortcuts are even more speedy when they’re spring-loaded!…

Liquify is normally thought of as a tool for reshaping parts of objects or people, but you might be surprised to hear that this tool is also brilliant at fixing hairs. This is a trick every portrait retoucher should know! The problem with retouching stray hairs is that it takes forever. Tools like the Spot Healing Brush, which are excellent for most retouching tasks, often give messy results with hairs. But rather than removing stray hairs, you can instead use Liquify to smooth them down into a pleasing shape, and the results can often be much more natural than trying to remove the hairs. The trick works best in portraits shot against clean, simple backgrounds. Simply go to Filter > Liquify, then grab the Freeze Tool from the toolbar on the left…

You can assign keyboard shortcuts to any tool, command or menu you like in Photoshop, so you can tailor tools to your own specific workflow. Here’s an example. When making composites or designs we often need to have several documents open at once, and we may need to quickly copy layers between them. The standard tab view (where each open document is accessed by a tab at the top) sometimes makes it difficult to identify specific documents. But you can set up a custom shortcut to quickly switch between a single-image view, and one that shows all your open documents on-screen. These options are usually available under Window > Arrange, but you can speed things up with a custom shortcut. Go to Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts, choose Shortcuts For: Application Menus,…